Field
Aspects of the present innovations relate to information modules, and, more particularly, to associated systems and methods, such as those involving creation, viewing and/or utilization of mixed-media modules.
Description of Related Information
At the moment, narrative—or playable—content on the internet primarily exists in the form of streaming video. This poses several problems for content creators. First of all, media consumers are sophisticated and recognize the difference between professionally produced video projects and amateur ones. Most consumer devices display High Definition video and most people are used to seeing that level of quality in media they consume. Therefore, a producer of online content must invest significant time and money to create video content at the level to which consumers have grown accustomed. Producing video is time-consuming, expensive and often requires specialized skills. For example, a video editor might spend hours editing just five minutes of video. Production often entails a professional production crew, on-camera talent, and equipment such as a professional lighting kit, high-end cameras, and audio gear.
The video post-production process is also time-consuming. Editing requires expensive software, a skilled editor with technical and story-telling skills, and, possibly, the hiring of a graphic designer, special effects artist and/or narrator. Editing software also utilizes a lot of computing resources, typically requiring sophisticated, expensive and fast computing/storage equipment. There is also a high learning curve when it comes to using any of these editing tools and each piece of software usually requires a large financial commitment.
Another complication with video production is that the audio tracks are often recorded and edited separately from the video tracks and the two (or more than two) must be synchronized and edited into one timeline. This can be laborious and time-consuming. Moreover, if needed, animation is costly, often proprietary, and difficult to produce. It often requires specific software in addition to the software used for editing. Video and animation files are large and cumbersome which means that a powerful computer, with a great deal of storage space, is needed. Finally, the amount of time it takes for the software to render a final product also adds to the overall time and expense. Once a video is complete it is difficult to make changes. This is a problem because, without updates, video is outdated quickly. Re-editing a video is time-consuming and complicated and there is no way to integrate “live data” or “updatable components.” Video is also bandwidth-heavy when streaming on the web and does not play in an acceptable manner over a poor internet connection.
Additionally, video is a stand-alone, self-contained, linear medium. It is not interactive and it is difficult to embed a layer of meta-data which would make it interactive. For instance, it is not easy for a content producer to link on-screen content to information elsewhere on the web. While a video may contain motion graphics, still photos or animations, it cannot display PDF files, text files and links to other content in a way that is useful for the audience. Nor is it easy to create “chapters.” For example, in a YouTube video a viewer cannot jump ahead to a specific chapter or section within the video. Any content that is embedded is “locked in” and is not easy to move or change. It can't contain links embedded into player for a true interactive experience. In sum, many such issues stem from the requirement that it be rendered (or re-rendered). As such, the creator of the content cannot easily link a video back to their own site so their only option is to place that information in the credits along with any other links they may wish to share.
Once a video is complete it may not reach everyone in the intended audience. For one thing, video is tough to view on mobile devices which are optimized for portability rather than processing power. Animations, in particular, are not compatible with all mobile platforms (i.e. iOS, Android, Blackberry, flash/non-flash) which means that potential audience members are excluded.
Advertising connected to video is also not ideal because it interrupts the flow of the video. Advertising in the pre-roll of a video prevents a user from getting to the content quickly, post-roll advertising is easy to ignore and if ads are inserted into the middle of content it is annoying and disruptive. One negative result of video advertising or banner ads is that it can send a viewer on a detour away from their desired content. Another option, banner or overlay ads, completely disrupt the user's experience, appear cheap, have no visual relevance and reflect poorly on the advertiser. None of these ads are related to the content or relevant to the user. As a result, the advertising mostly annoys the user, isn't helpful and doesn't have a great return on investment (ROI) for the advertiser. This is reflected by the low click-through rates on web ads.
Yet another challenge is that, without human curation, video is complicated to search and requires highly intelligent, algorithm-based content scanning systems to “tag” content as a specific category. This is time consuming, not always accurate and would be improved if there were a way for meta-data from the embedded content to be included in the content. Most systems are reliant on user input, like PageRank, which is impossible to scale in video. There is a need for a richer, searchable set of data.
As such, there is a need for systems and methods that address the above drawbacks an/or provide other beneficial functionality or advantages to parties involved with creating, viewing, sharing and/or utilizing such information modules.